Welcome to "Dust, Tears & Dice", a blog dedicated to the hobby of miniature wargaming.
If you fancy gaming periods off the beaten track then this is the place for you.
I am a regular member of The Wyvern Wargamers, formerly The Evesham Wargames Club drawing gamers from Worcester, Redditch, Kidderminster, Cheltenham and Stratford.
All players welcome.

Low Ammo and Supplies Rules for Through Mud and the Blood rules.

Now
it has to be said I am a fan for Rich Clarke's Too Fat lardies rules, I
love the idea of units being inspired by leaders and larger than life
characters and it fits with my with my typical gaming style of large
scale skirmish.

Over
the last 12 months I have been building up forces for the Russo
Japanese War and have been using Through Mud & Blood Rich's WW1
Skirmish rules, however the period generates some interesting challenges
which feel more at home in earlier periods than the some to be seen
horrors of the trenches but 10 years later, one of these was the issue
around supply and ammunition it got me thinking about how to apply these
in the Rules.

"Calling for more ammo"

Several hours spent on the web brought up some interesting discussions points.

Sir Richard Henagan a commander at Waterloo stated the problem at La Haye Sainte was because
the rifle armed units (95th Rifles) used more ammunition
than anticipated, so when Baring called for more there was no more to
give him.

At
Isandlwana during the Zulu Wars the supply issues with the supply
wagons being to far back from the firing lines led to the British
defeat. We could spend hours debating whether screws in the lids
hampered this further.

"Bullets run out but those bloody spears don't"

Clearly as war became more sophisticated so to did supply and rear area
support, reading extracts from commanders within the ACW they were often
forced to withdraw troops from the line in order to resupply.

How many rounds would your average infantryman carry into battle 40 - 60?

So how to apply this to the table top?

I
liked the idea of random events with the Shape Practice when more 1's
than 6's are rolled, but found the need to reference the separate chart a
little cumbersome and honestly forgot more times than remembered to
even use it, it's not a rule that carried forward into M&B but was
worthy of reintroduction for the RJW. (besides I got to use the
character figures often found in blister packs these days.)

So I have incorporated the following in house rule.

Firing.

When more 1's than 6's were rolled in firing a Low Ammo Counter is applied to the unit (LA).

A unit can receive an unlimited number of these LA counters.

In
the same way a Big Man in M&B can add +1 pip to any single dice for
each status level above 1, a defender can now spend the firers LA
counters to lower the attack dice reducing any dice by -1 pip for each
LA counter spent.

Close Combat.

When entering into close combat once each side has worked out the
number of dice fighting and side with more 1's rolled than 6's would
apply the excessive 1's to the unit as LA markers.

"The Russians roll three 6's
and five 1's resulting in 3 Japanese being killed but receive 2 LA
markers after that round of combat."

I
made an assumption that in the heat of melee troops are less likely to
worry about ammunition conservation when they are fighting for their
lives.

For each LA point in close combat remove 1 dice, I add this to the deductions after the shock point deductions.

"A Chinese coolie bring supplies up to the front"

Removal of Low Ammo Points.

Unless spent by the opposition. Bigmen can use their status or
command initiative points to remove LA markers as they would with Shock
points.

Alternatively a group with a an activated big man my send a runner
for additional supplies losing one figures from the unit but in return
removing 2 LA markers.

Supply Units.

I
have added in an additional unit type to the Support section, the
supply unit may be anything from Chinese coolies, pack mules or horse
draw wagons, any activated supply unit with 12" of an Infantry group may
deduct 1 LA marker per 2 actions.

Supply units are assumed to have 5 men in a group and may be targeted like any regular infantry unit.

Opposing forces may not use each other supply units and once captured can not be recaptured.

I add a supply support unit for every 4 infantry/cavalry groups deployed on table.

The above rules seem to play to the spirit of the TFL rules and
keep book keeping to a minimum, allowing players to trade points limiting hits if you are not properly suppled.

The introduction of supply units make for an interesting mini game as players look
to sneak supplies through to the hard pressed front, bold cavalry
tactics are rewarded by making units unsupplied for whole games as pack mules are chased off.